The first days after a client signs decide how the next months go. In our experience, most problems that appear late in an engagement were created by something left unsaid at the start.
An engagement is our word for a piece of work with a client.
If you have run engagements elsewhere, much of this act will be familiar. What is ORIGIN's own is who owns each step, and the order the steps come in.
What client onboarding is
Dead time is when a team is ready and cannot work, because it is waiting for an answer, a file or a decision.
To protect ORIGIN from dead time and from revenue that is never collected, onboarding a client is the most important step we take. Revenue that is never collected is work we invoiced and were never paid for.
Client onboarding is everything between the signature and the first piece of delivered work. In those days we set five things, and each one protects the client as much as it protects us.
The five things
Why it protects everyone
A client who was onboarded well knows what happens next and is rarely surprised. A client who was not will fill every gap with their own assumption, and we will meet those assumptions later as disputes, delays and unpaid invoices.
A client has signed. Your team is ready and cannot start: it is waiting for a decision, and nobody knows who decides on the client's side. Which of the five was never set?
Both sides should know who decides, who approves and who to call. A team that is ready and waiting is dead time.
Each of the five protects the client as much as it protects us.
How it runs
From the signature to the first meeting
Four words in those steps
If you join a POD after it has started, ask your Team Lead for the kickoff notes before you do anything. They tell you what this client was promised, so the client is not asked questions they already answered.
You join a POD after it has started. Your first task is waiting in Asana. What do you do before anything else?
The kickoff notes tell you, and your Team Lead has them.
An hour of clarity at the start saves a month of dispute at the end.
Before you move on
Three questions before you move on. Type your answer, send it, then check it.
Your answers stay on this device.1What is dead time?
The answerWhen a team is ready and cannot work, because it is waiting for an answer, a file or a decision.
2Which five things do we set when we onboard a client?
The answerExpectations, people, rhythm, approval and payment.
3After the handover, what does the OS Team check?
The answerThat what was sold, what was signed and what will be invoiced all match.
Clarity first. Then the work.
A handover with nothing lost: that is one team. Next: the kickoff conversation.